The clues had all been there. The buildup of troops on the Ukrainian border. The increasingly bizarre, stage-managed television appearances of Vladimir Putin. The movement of troops into the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk. Yet still there was a belief that diplomacy and reason could somehow win through and that Russia would pull back from all-out war. That hope died early on Thursday morning when Putin launched a ground, sea and air offensive on several Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv.
Just after midday, Boris Johnson delivered his own televised statement from behind a small table hastily positioned in front of a doorway in Downing Street. Presumably his office was too much of a tip for him to be filmed there. There was an early reference to Neville Chamberlain, who in a 1938 radio address had described the dispute over the Sudetenland as “a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing”. Johnson stressed that Ukraine was neither far away nor a country of which we know nothing. But otherwise there was little of the Churchill tribute act that has characterised his recent Commons appearances.
Instead we got something more restrained. More hesitant, even. As if even he couldn’t quite believe it had come to this and was uncertain of what steps to take beyond a vague aspiration to defeat Putin. He talked the talk. Bodies – not ours – would mount up and Russia would be hit with massive sanctions. Yet there was a dissonance. A disconnection. It was almost as if he was aware that these were desperately serious times and he needed a different persona to his naturally glib self. Yet he couldn’t conjure one that was entirely convincing.
Johnson did rather better when he faced the Commons to make a statement on Ukraine in the afternoon. Possibly because he had had a quick lesson in statesmanship from a crisis management expert, though more likely because he had accepted a few home truths.
This was one of the few occasions when it didn’t matter that most of the country didn’t rate him at all and believed his first instinct was always to protect himself. In a straight fight with a delusional, narcissistic dictator who had just invaded another country and had blood on his hands, the UK’s very own narcissist was going to win hands down. Put simply, Putin was in a totally different league of sociopath. So Johnson only had to stand up to look good.
It also helped that this time, Boris actually had something substantial to say. On Tuesday, he had talked a good line about Ukraine’s independence and democratic freedoms, only to come up with a list of sanctions that were about as effective as pissing in the wind: five small banks and three individuals who had already been sanctioned by the US back in 2018.
At the time, the Suspect had tried to make out that this was part of a carefully gradated response, but he had clearly been taken aback when almost the entire house – the Lib Dems had been the most hawkish of the lot – thought the government was useless and it was only a matter of time before Putin invaded the rest of Ukraine. After he had recovered from nearly dying of laughter.
Johnson wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. So he followed up his tough words on Putin with equally tough sanctions. Dozens of companies and individuals would have their assets frozen – possibly even some that had donated to the Tory party, though that wasn’t made entirely clear. He also made it clear that the UK had been pushing the EU and other Nato countries to block Russia from the Swift international money transfer system – something the EU and the US were so far reluctant to do. Maybe if things got worse … The Suspect was for once ahead of the curve.
He promised to bring forward the economic crime bill to next Monday, having promised it some time in the next session earlier in the week. He also hinted that the sanctions would hit UK citizens’ cost of living. For someone pathologically averse to telling people things they don’t want to hear, this was a huge step forward. Though not one necessarily to be repeated.
Keir Starmer was also in his comfort zone, relishing the chance to show that Labour could be trusted in matters of defence and security. So much so that he had threatened to withdraw the whip from the 11 of his MPs unless they took their names off the Stop the War statement they had signed. He too condemned Putin and promised to back all the sanctions. And any others Johnson happened to want to bring in at a later date.
You couldn’t put a cigarette paper between Starmer and Johnson, and much of the rest of the session developed into a love-in, with everyone falling over themselves to agree with one another in their determination to defeat Russia. Occasionally someone would seek clarification that people or businesses hadn’t been left off the sanction list, and the Suspect duly wrote down their names and added them to it.
Even the most hawkish seemed to have decided that Nato being militarily involved was a bad idea. The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, just looked glum as he sat next to Johnson. Then maybe he was still kicking himself for making a twat of himself by telling the army that he would kick Russian backsides just like in the Crimean war. Anyone for the Charge of the Light Brigade?
There were only two small moments of tension. Alba MP Neale Hanvey looked disappointed he didn’t get more applause for having persuaded his leader, Alex Salmond, not to broadcast on Russia Today. And Labour’s Clive Lewis had to be reminded that the time for negotiation was generally before an invasion, not after it. But otherwise it was all sweetness and light. Shame it takes a war to make politics this cooperative.
